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Small (destroyer, frigate etc)

14 (14.4%)

Small (destroyer, frigate etc) - overdriven

14 (14.4%)

Capital Ship (battleship, cruiser etc)

57 (58.8%)

Capital Ship (battleship, cruiser etc) - overdriven

5 (5.2%)

Phase Ships

7 (7.2%)

Phase Ships - overdriven

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 97

[Jabroni]

I wonder what type of ship do you prefer and I'm curious of the weapon and mods setting. Initially when I stared playing i preferred bigger ships since I always thought I need more guns, more flux and more rockets to destroy enemies, but after long brake from playing I've decided to try this game with new patch and I started to enjoy small overdriven ships. They are more challenging and  probably less efficient (at least in my case, since I'm not very good at controlling them), but they are way more fun. Capital ships are slow and don't require so much attention and reflex. I'd like to know what other players prefer and especially in case of smaller overdriven ships what are your setups.

My favorite so far is overdriven Hammerhead. I've had most fun with that, but later in the game I've felt like my setup wasn't very good and I was often overwhelmed by enemy fire. I was putting any weapon in front that destroy armor. It wasn't very effective against shields, but in larger battles I was able to go for unprotected parts and deal much damage or in some cases brute force through shield.

[Igncom1]

I like lists built around a solid core of battleships or carriers. Supported by a variety of smaller assets like cruisers or destroyers.

But you can only really support that later in the game, for much of the middle game I mostly rely on a couple cruisers supported by destroyers and frigates for surveying/combat expeditions.

[Wyvern]

I go pretty much exclusively on fast cruisers/battlecruisers for my flagship, supported by more of the same and with a handful of high-survivability frigates for support and node captures - usually Tempests with extended shields and hardened subsystems. Destroyers very rarely have a place in my fleets.

RE: Overdriven Hammerhead: Machine guns are good. You generally only need one armor-cracking weapon. A good general-purpose SO-Hammerhead is going to have one assault chaingun, one heavy machine gun, two light dual machine guns, and 20 capacitors. For my personal use I'd look at s-modding hardened shields and either extended shields or insulated engine assembly, adding vulcans to cover rear PD, and tossing the last seven ordnance points into vents, but details can vary.
(And then, every once in a blue moon, you find a derelict hammerhead that has Safety Overrides s-modded in... Still, that's certainly not something to rely on.)
...That's not going to stop it from getting overwhelmed by enemy fire, though; that's just it being a destroyer. An SO Fury or Aurora might be worth considering as an upgrade; still reasonably mobile, but with significantly stronger shields.

[FooF]

A fast Cruiser is about the sweet spot for me. Odyssey sneaks in that category because it’s as fast as most cruisers. Aurora and Fury are the obvious picks but SO Champion is surprisingly fast and can hit really hard. SO Eagle can also move and hit relatively hard with HBs.

Destroyers just don’t have the damage output or the flux stats to get in range late game. I like them a lot during level up but even a perfect Hammerhead just doesn’t have enough gun and it gets shredded on approach. It’s a great ship but it has a ceiling.

[Linnis]

Usually carrier.

Just sit back and watch the action while making pewlew sounds with mouth

[Megas]

Whatever is the overpowered godship of the release, provided it is not too annoying to pilot.  In old releases before 0.7, it was Hyperion or Medusa.  During 0.7, it was Onslaught.  During 0.8, it was either Astral or Paragon.  During early 0.9, it was Harbinger (when it could use medium Reapers).  During 0.95, it was Doom (when it had long-range mines with Systems Expertise).  Today, it is Ziggurat.  Honorable mention to Afflictor chains, though it is annoying to pilot at times because mistakes are unforgiving (and enemy phase frigates that stall and drain PPT are annoying to fight with a phase frigate.)

Ziggurat with Omega weapons is about as overpowered as 0.7 era Onslaught, although 0.7 Onslaught had the benefit of stronger skills and much less cowardly enemy AI that did not hesitate drifting into Onslaught's superior shot range instead of waiting until mutual CR timeout.

Aside from that, I prefer bigger ships with lots of guns because many other shoot-'em-up games (arcade games, Star Control, Transcendence) put the player in a fighter craft or mech (or equivalent) with a single (or dual) forward-facing (or occasionally spread) gun, while enemies are either other fighter craft or big battleship boss.

About phase ships.  I prefer pre-0.72 original style phase cloak with no cooldown.  That style works great for brawling phase ships.  Ziggurat works similar to that style, it is the only phase ship that can truly brawl.  Other phase ships with normal phase cloaks are suited only for assassination, but since the speed loss of 0.95.1, only frigates are fast enough for the job.  AI cannot pilot Harbinger effectively (because it always tries its assassination path, but it is too slow to pull it off).  Now, Doom needs lots of skills (especially elite Field Mod. and Systems Exp.) to match its pre-nerf power and mine things from long enough range.

[FastestDraw]

I feel like I can get so much more switching out in 2/3 overdriven frigates with combat skills than I can out of capital ships, even though I basically just piloted the big stuff when I started.

Just having one big ship full of point defence and some frigates filled with too many guns is great fun for most combat encounters. More importantly, the smaller overall fleet size makes hyperspace clouds a lot less annoying.

[Big Bee]

I hate the ''tank controls'' with a passion so I rarely pilot ships manually at all.

I tried some fast frigates like HMI's Marlin with mouse-rotation mode, which made things a bit easier but it was still quite awkward to adjust to pressing left to go right cause I'm facing south.

But then, I gave the Infernal Machine start from Underworld a try. An upgraded IM (and to a lesser extent, the weaker Infernus) is really fun for me. It's slow as hell but it is tanky (I gave it Shield Shunt), has a Burn Drive and does not need to turn that much, as it mainly relies on one huge built-in turret that can rotate like, 270 degrees or so? So I gave it Advanced Turret Gyros and charged into enemy capitals while unloading the whole clip of the main gun, which is usually enough to cripple them or at least force them to back off until the ammo recovers.

I'm planning on trying to manually pilot big heavy capitals after this. Anything that doesn't need me to turn much. Having a big turret with good coverage definitely helps when it takes 2 hours to turn around though.

[BCS]

Never piloted a ship outside of tutorial, never plan to.

If I had to I would probably go for phase ships since they require least skill investment to do well. SO is cancer.

[Rusty Edge]

 I like to fly for fun rather than just effect, most of my long battles involve me being too cocky and getting my flagship armor crippled early on, then having to be really choosy on who to engage.
 Sniper Enforcer with 5 linked Maulers.
 Top speed Manticore with a storm needler and dual harpoons for chasing down frigates.
I'm not much of a phase player but I can have fun supporting a squadron of frontline ships with a Shade or an Afflictor.
 And, as a former SO addict, I have enjoyed the lineup of LP brawler, Tempest, Hammerhead and Pirate Eradicator.

[BlazingScribe]

I live or die by the Conquest. Even in modded games I find the coolest iteration of the Conquest that I can, and build it to be a mobile terror. I live to fly through the center of an engagement broadsiding in every direction.

[Thaago]

I tend to pilot a destroyer for much of the early game as part of a destroyer/frigate pack and then just straight to a capital, usually one that can either move fast (Conquest, Odyssey) or move fast towards the enemy (Onslaught). Sometimes I'll fly a burn 9 light cruiser if I find one at a convenient time.

[NikoTheGuyDude]

Nothing is more satisfying than the good ol' fashioned 2x AM blaster afflictor

[Megas]

Also, I like to pilot unique hero ships if they are strong enough (which Ziggurat qualifies).

I see Ziggurat as a thinly veiled Vindicator knock-off (from Star Control 2), and it is only natural that it becomes the final default flagship for my fleet.  I wish there were more unique (and overpowered) hero ships the player can find and use.  Of course, being unique should mean the ship auto-ids like Ziggurat does, and that is an annoyance when loitering around core worlds if I do not want to start wars with other factions.  (On the other hand, it is a great excuse for wiping all major factions off the map as retribution for expedition spam and other abuse they heap on the player over the releases.)

About Safety Override.  I do not think it is a good idea with phase ships because their CR decays so much faster than other ships.  With normal ships, I can get away with staying in for a good while until CR decays to 40%.  With phase ships, after PPT timeout, their CR decays way too fast for SO to be a good option.  With Safety Override, high max CR and slow CR decay are important, which normal ships can take advantage of, but phase ships have fast CR decay.

[gG_pilot]

None.
My fingers are too lazy to control about 20 keys in blazing speed. I am not a Korean teenager.
Is  there any option to control only ship movement (mouse for spin and two keys  for speed), but all other  thing are controlled by AI ?

BTW: That is also reason I dont use a flagship in battles or any combat skill on Main Character.